2009 Fiordland earthquake

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(100 km south-west of Te Anau )

The Dusky Sound earthquake of 2009, which took place in the unpopulated area of ​​the geographical region Fiordland on the South Island of New Zealand, was with a magnitude of 7.8 MW, the largest New Zealand earthquake since the Murchison earthquake of 1929 and the Hawke's Bay earthquake of 1931.

Geography

The Dusky Sound is located on the southwestern edge of the Fiordland National Park in the Southland region, about 100 km southwest of the town of Te Anau and about 100 km north-west of Tuatapere.

The quake

On 15 July 2009 against 21:22 clock brought a take-off in 30 km depth earthquake that slowly gave its energy upwards and let be free at a depth of 12 km, almost all of New Zealand quake. The vibrations were perceived mainly in the South Island, but also on the west coast of the North Island as far north as Auckland. The western charisma of the quake reached as far as Sydney, Australia. A triggered by the quake tsunami reached the Australian coast but only at low altitude. The tidal wave on the coast of Fiordland region was about one meter. Over the next four days 16 more aftershocks were registered with thicknesses greater than 5, one with magnitude 6.1.

The slow- running shock wave in which energy is delivered slowly, it is thanks to them that no major damage to buildings in the region Southland are created and the number and severity of landslides was limited.

Nevertheless, already on 24 July damages in the amount of 2.88 million NZ $ were summed, with a forecast for their duplication.